One of the most talked about pieces of tech this season is Siri, the voice recognition system that Apple included on its iPhone 4S. For owners of the iPhone 4 or earlier, not being able to install Siri's software on their phone is unfortunate, but as expected, many developers out there have been working on porting it over - to mixed levels of success.

I agree with your points completely. However, after playing with Siri, which is currently limited compared with U.S. version, I've nonetheless found it absolutely amazing to use. At times, I forgot I was talking to a piece of glass and aluminum, and at times I felt like I was talking to a real human being! I've seen others adding SiriProxies that allow Siri to control thermostats, tv's, car stereo systems, etc., so I can't wait to see how Siri progress's after emerging from its beta stage and starts shipping with a Siri SDK?

Maybe it's something that needs to be used day-to-day rather than just once for a few minutes to understand what's wrong with it. No voice technology so far has ever impressed me, and from all I've read about Siri, it isn't set to change my mind.

The lack of any support whatsoever for any other language than English also seriously limits the usability of this technology even for native speakers. Not to mention making it absolutely useless to anyone else.

That said Siri, like many other similar technologies is a technological showcase of how much we progressed in terms of voice recognition. A few years back the sentence above would just fail if you had the wrong tone of voice. So quite frankly, I'm happily amazed at how far we went on such a low spec device.

But the voice recognition is still an unsolved technological problem. And there's been too much ado for nothing. Siri is not better than many other similar products out there. Certainly not anywhere close to professional grade voice recognition software like Dragon, Tazti or the Proteus Conversational Interface. Just like with many things Apple, A subpar product is introduced (that isn't even a novelty, if we consider voice activated devices have existed for more than 20 years), and immediately hailed as the best thing since John Smith from Massachusetts accidentally dropped peanut butter on a slice of bread.

... and it's this level of blind and ignorant faith that irritates me. Not the product.

That's exactly my point, but I just don't care to waste my time Googling a zillion sites to make my point, just the one is enough!

So this "one is enough" rule applies to random blogs that get updated twice per month, huh? Surely you could have found a better source than that, given you only wanted to post one? I don't mean to discredit this blog, but that's as good as going up to some random person on the street and asking them their opinion - or linking to an Apple-biased website.

Was that quite literally the only site you found that backed up your opinions?

Either way, the fact is that Siri started out on a high, but things declined fast. People liked it at first, claiming it could be the future of computing, but after it was actually put to use for a few weeks by those who have a 4S, the realities of it all has become clear. Apple might well perfect this in time, but I don't see that happening for a good while (Nuance has been on this for ages, after all, and its Dragon suite is still far from perfect).

Speaking of, I wonder if Nuance get more in royalties from Apple's use of Siri than what it makes on its own software? I don't know a single person who uses Dragon except for a temporary trial.

Quote:

Originally Posted by OriginalJoeCool

One of those articles Rob linked to mentioned Siri being a "Google-killer". How exactly? Incidentally, I noticed Google now has voice recognition as part of its search!

That feature has been around for a while I believe. I still don't know who'd rather talk into a mic than just type out the query. Small query or not, talking out a search isn't exactly going to give you many advantages (unless you have no use of your hands, at which point it's brilliant).

Was that quite literally the only site you found that backed up your opinions?

/QUOTE]

No, I could have sited many other sites, and you know it, but since I was rushing to get ready for an operation (just got out of the hospital Monday night and I'm still in pain) I simply grabbed the first site I've saw to illustrate the point that if one site says one thing, there's always another that will say the opposite. You seem very quick to point out any negative about Apple, so I simply thought I give a different point of view... do you have a problem with people who have a different opinion than yours?

I think I can speak for most here... We don't have a problem with different opinions, but we do have problems with fanboys

In that case you like NOBODY! Every one is a fan of someone or something, right? Maybe you like Lady Gaga, but if you do, I guess you can't speak of her. How childish! Rob likes Linux, as do I, therefore we shouldn't speak of them I guess, again, how childish! You simply assume too much, again, how childish!

In that case you like NOBODY! Every one is a fan of someone or something, right? Maybe you like Lady Gaga, but if you do, I guess you can't speak of her. How childish! Rob likes Linux, as do I, therefore we shouldn't speak of them I guess, again, how childish! You simply assume too much, again, how childish!

I don't know you and have only read a few of your posts so forgive me for not knowing you well enough to put you into this but.

A fan of a brand is one thing. A fanboy is a whole different story. Fanboy's often reject any truth that harm's anything they like. They force their opinion on people because they know they're right. They wouldn't be caught dead with the competitors product. They go looking and use the most insignificant thing they can find to say why they don't like a company's product. I mean geeze it must destroy me that my nvidia card uses 10 more watts than this guys amd card that doesnt even perform as well in the game im playing. He should totally use that in his argument right?

It's things like Intel vs AMD. If i say a damned thing about bulldozer I will get called an Intel fanboy when the truth is id still take a Phenom X6 over nothing any day. No one company can deliver a product to meet every need. Never stop considering the alternative.

A fan boy reviews a product looking for everything he doesn't like about it. Possibly even avoiding speaking of everything that works fine despite their preference.

"You" may like lady gaga, i think shes retarded and i still listen to a couple of her songs. I listen to country, rock, alternative, hip hop, rap. Not a single genre is limited to have a good track. But I as any human might bias against say classical, bluegrass, jazz, etc. There is a track here and there that makes it into my library. I'm 26 and have freaking Albert Ammons in my library. That's you this is me and unfortunately music barely relates to tech in this regard though.